Well done, Neil. There’s a lot of subtlety in this.
I love the idea of the guy with the misguided Valentine’s idea. How often does that happen and yes, much better to stick with flowers and chocolates.
I am quite often surprised at the couples who’ve stayed together despite the high divorce rate and having very quirky personalities. It’s quite baffling.
Hope you have a great week.
xx Rowena

I love this. I wrote a poem once called “Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String.” The physical reason for entanglement is simple: there are a lot more tangled states than untangled. It makes a great metaphor.

his socks are never entangled and he loses one member of the pair – Somehow I feel as if one member of the pair is on the way out. A delightful take on the prompt. (My father was an engineer. He maneuvered through life like this. I think that if he hadn’t had a deeply romantic side, my mom would have left him.)

Oh, Neil, I used to date science geeks like Herbert. You have got him down to a tee. They have a strange way of expressing their attachment to the opposite sex. I think that if they do lose their socks, they probably didn’t match in the first place!